


On why Captain Marvel worked for me while Wonder Woman didn't

by Woodface



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Gen, Meta, i hope you won't mind giving this a go, i would just very much like to see how other people look at this, i've never posted anything like this to ao3 before, so feel free to let me know if you disagree, this is more of a personal impression than deep analysis however
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 07:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodface/pseuds/Woodface
Summary: My rambling thoughts on both Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman and the impression these movies left on me





	On why Captain Marvel worked for me while Wonder Woman didn't

**Author's Note:**

> As a little disclaimer, I want to add that I enjoyed both movies. It is not my intension to pit both against each other and say that one is right and the other wrong. I simple wish to have a closer look as to why my feelings about these movies differ so vastly.

I love female superheroes. I love that we're finally getting movies that put them front and centre. I want to have more movies like these. Many more so I don't feel quite so hesitant picking at the faults I find within them just because I'm grateful to even get these movies now. I can't help myself however and if you have followed my tumblr, you might have already heard some of my criticism towards Wonder Woman. Watching Captain Marvel now however woke up all those feelings again and I find myself with an urge to navel gaze a little further on the subject.

First of all, I must admit to a level of bias towards Carol Danvers. She was the first superhero I read the comic books of. In my quest to discover more about Maria Hill, I read a little bit of Civil War and discovered Ms Marvel. I was in love. A friend pointed me in the right direction and I mainlined Ms Marvel (2006) and the Kelly Sue Deconnick runs. Carol is a flawed hero, but someone who wants to do right. She's brash, sucks at diplomacy, tends to talk with her fists, but she tries so hard. Not only did I love Carol, but I loved the people she surrounded herself with. She is shaped by the relationships she has with the people (and especially women) around her. A lot of the books I read told the story of Carol trying to find her place in the world, trying to find who she truly is in between all the noise life kept throwing at her.

While it took me a little while to get around to reading Wonder Woman, I loved her just as much. I read her Greg Rucka and Gail Simone run and some Bombshells. While Diana is much less flawed than Carol, they do share some of the same qualities. They both want to have a positive impact on the world, only Diana usually manages (or at least tries) to be more diplomatic about it. In fact, with Rucka's run she is mostly acting as an ambassador for the Amazons among humans. While she chooses to live on Earth, she is still in contact with them and both her relationship with the Amazon, with humans and even with the gods, have a huge impact on her. Diana is never quite searching for herself, she knows who she is and she wants to help the people around her, no matter the cost to herself. (One of my favourite relationships which show this best is between her and Cheetah.)

I was thrilled when both movies were announced. To see these characters come to live, it was everything I was hoping for. That was until the casting was confirmed. I was disappointed in both. Neither Gal Gadot or Brie Larson matched who I wanted to see in the roles. A friend of mine, distaff, worded it as "they cast Buffy when they should have cast Xena" and I still agree to that sentiment. Aside from body types, there was also the age of both actresses. Carol Danvers should match Tony Stark in age, but Brie Larson wasn't even 30 yet. Sure, the movie takes plays in the 90s (and I'm trying not to think how long ago that was now), but that still meant that Carol would look a lot younger than she is when she shows up for Avengers.

This left me conflicted about both movies. I wanted them to do well, but at the same time, I was cautious simply based on the fact of who they had chosen for the role. It tempered my enthusiasm for both movies, but I was determined to see them both in the theatre if simply for the fact that I want to support these movies. I tried to keep my expectations as low as possible, however, and it worked in that I enjoyed both in the end. I think both actresses did a good job. However, while I walked out of Wonder Woman thinking Gal Gadot did good, I still don't consider her to be _my_ Wonder Woman. With Brie Larson, I do feel like I saw the Carol Danvers come to life. I don't think that impression is based on merely acting skills. It's for a huge part based on how their stories were told.

When it comes to plot, I think Wonder Woman's is definitely more epic (I believe it's also the longer movie of the two). It's also more traditional in its story telling. I particularly loved the part on Themyscira. Seeing the Amazons was amazing and I look very fondly on this bit. This is however where we set up the first point of comparison with Captain Marvel and that is the origin of Diana's powers. The movie starts with Diana believing her mother made her out of clay and Zeus gave her life. This breaks with the comics where Diana was brought to life by Aphrodite herself. Already there is a minor shift in narration here. In fact, the movie tells us that all gods are dead. Only Ares remains and he wants to destroy mankind (I do believe the movie likes to talk about _men_ more than they like to talks about _humans_ ).

We're told that Diana is special, however, that she has to better than even Antiope herself in order to survive. Still, we are made to believe (with tiny nudges that there's more to the story) that Diana is powerful because she's an Amazon and a special one at that. It isn't until the end of the movie that we learn the true story. Diana isn't just an Amazon. She's a daughter of Zeus. She's a demi-god and she's a godkiller because of it. She was put on Earth by Zeus to be used as a weapon to destroy Ares and save the world.

As I understand it, the more recent comics have been moving towards Diana being Zeus' daughter as well, but it wasn't initially so. The Amazons were supposedly created by the Greek goddesses. In Rucka's books Diana even becomes the champion of Athena and she who helps them overthrow Zeus who has been acting like a tyrant and has been failing as a leader. In the movie, Diana has her powers because she's the daughter of Zeus. Ares is the one to tell her and it is her love for Steve that lets her unlock the strength to beat him. Her strength comes from Zeus. Her strength is unlocked because of her love for a man. (The latter being a trope typically used for male heroes, so it is nice to see them use it for Diana.)

Now let's take a look at Captain Marvel and well... We get a bit of an opposite story when it comes to Carol's powers. When we start the movie, we're told that Carol's powers come from Yon-Rogg. We see them sparring together and he's teaching her. He's telling her to control her emotions, to not let herself get distracted. What a different start where Diana was taught by women, surrounded by women, Carol is taught by a man. Except, we end up learning that he was never the source of her power. He was the one holding her back. He was the one helping to contain her power.

Carol's power never came from Yon-Rogg. Carol got her powers trying to help Mar-Vell. If Captain Marvel had followed canon, then Mar-Vell would have been a man rather than an (elder) woman. An explosion of a Kree device would have fused Carol's DNA with that of Mar-Vell and that's how she got her powers. The movie however went a different way. They mixed Mar-vell with Helen Cobb, a female pilot who is a huge influence on Carol in Kelly Sue Deconnick's comics. They took two of the most defining relationships from the comics and mixed them together creating Wendy Lawson. They went one step further and even took away the whole DNA thing.

It's not a grand revelation about her love for a man either that teaches her to control her powers. It's realising that this man who pretended to be a mentor and a friend, had been using her as his weapon. Carol breaks free of that control and for the first time discovers what she is capable of. She beats Yon-Rogg, but on her own terms.

It's such a stark contrast, but I don't want to say that Carol's moment of revelation is better than Diana's. Wonder Woman took a trope normally reserved for male heroes and turned it around. It's also undeniable that these characters are very different, and Diana's love and empathy define her. (It's such a huge part of what I love with her and Cheetah, so it'd be hypocritical to wave this off here.) It's just a more traditional way of storytelling, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be room for both.

It's painful however to see the choices that were made in Wonder Woman. There were several backgrounds they could have picked, but they chose the one where Diana is most defined by men. They removed Athena and Aphrodite, and left only two gods to influence Diana's history: Zeus and Ares. Maybe it helped to simplify the story, but it left me disappointed that this was the road they decided to take.

Another thing I mentioned earlier was how important the relationships in Carol and Diana's life are in the comics. Especially female relationships. Both have this ability to lift up the women around them. They are comrades in arms, they are family, they are friends. When I think of Captain Marvel, I also think of Jessica Drew and Monica Rambeau. I think of Kit, the Banshee Squad, Helen Cobb. I think of Tic, Tracy Burke and Kamala Kahn. With Diana, I think of Cheetah, Artemis, Io. I think of Athena. I think of Etta Candy (the black and gay version), Mera and Big Barda. In quantity, Wonder Woman certainly delivered. For the first chunk of the movie, we get so many women who all played their role in Diana's life, but then she leaves the island and...

Suddenly we're back in familiar territory. The one woman amongst men (well Etta is at least still there). One can argue that this is mostly due to the setting, but Diana is very much The Woman of the movie. She fights and shows the men how it's done and it's powerful. It definitely is, but there is such a disconnect to go from an island full to a world with only men. It hits home even harder when you go to the very end of the movie because those men are gone now. Steve has been dead a long time and Diana is left alone in the world. Not as an ambassador with a connection to the Amazons still. Diana's an archaeologist of sorts (I assume) and she doesn't seem to be getting a lot of women to hang out with.

Captain Marvel gives us a mixed cast. We don't get an island full of Amazons, but Carol's defining relationships are still all present in the movies. She actually starts with only one antagonistic relationship, only to reconnect with Maria. As I said before, they cleverly merged Helen Cobb and Mar-Vell into one character, someone who gives Carol a chance to fly and become a hero. There is Maria and Monica (though I'm somewhat confused by this age choice in regards to Monica). Maria doesn't get to stay behind either, she gets prompted by her daughter to play a bigger role in the story and gets to kick ass.

I'm relieved they decided to keep Carol's story romance free and the choice of Fury as her wingman was excellent. That is not to say that I'm not judging Wonder Woman for having a romance story. It's her background and I think they actually handled the relationship well. Steve never takes away from Diana. Well okay, he's a bit of an idiot at times, but for the most part he supports her when he needs to. He needs a little prodding, but he believes in her. I think Fury and Steve play similar roles really, and both moves do well in letting their superhero shine. (Given what we know about Whedon's ideas, this is a blessing.)

There is one other point I would like to touch upon and that is the aesthetic of the movies. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised to see the credits not only thank Kelly Sue Deconnick, but also David Lopez. When I started to think on it, it made me realise one thing: Captain Marvel does not sexualise any of its female characters. Carol is either in uniform or in her comfy NIN t-shirt and leather jacket. She's given a ballcap by Fury to be more undercover. Captain Marvel has no male gaze at any point in the movie. The women wear uniforms and functional clothes. That's it.

Wonder Woman however already had me facepalming before the movie arrived. I did read up more and I highly respect the work they did to incorporate elements of Greek armour, but... they still went for the boob armour. I remember reading a quote that they wanted the armour to have a feminine look. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's different ways to achieve that. Then again, it could have been much much worse, but there definitely is a male gaze in the movie. We see it when Steve brings her into London and she instantly gets catcalled. They conveniently find a reason to put Diana in a dress, though I highly appreciate the sword she stuffed in the back. They however did not take advantage of this chance to redesign her costume or to go look into the comics for an alternative. They stuck with the shortest skirt they could find. A more iconic look, perhaps, but they could have done better.

And there's the rub with Wonder Woman for me. They could have done better. There were so many choices to go with, so many opportunities to move to a more female orientated story. For a moment, that seemed to be what we were getting, but the minute Diana leaves Themyscira, I feel like they stuck with the safe options. They made choices that moved Diana away from the stories that I loved that when I walked out of the movie, I was still not convinced that I really saw Wonder Woman. I had seen a version of her, but not the version that lives in my head or one that I adore. Gal Gadot did well, but unless the next movie does better, she's never really going to be the face I see when I think of Captain Marvel.

This is vastly different with how I feel about Captain Marvel. While the story itself is unique and does not match up with the comics, all the crucial elements are there. I can see Kelly Sue Deconnick's mark on this movie. I see the bits and pieces that I love about Carol and I even feel they improved upon her story. They took more risks and while the storyline itself feels a little safer and less epic, the character arc is wonderful and the decisions they made just feel right. I connect with it in a way that I didn't with Wonder Woman, and while Brie Larson can't magically age years, she showed me Carol Danvers.


End file.
